


to dwell on dreams

by viotaq (taq)



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Family, Gen, HP AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 00:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23002789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taq/pseuds/viotaq
Summary: It is when Anna is born that Elsa’s magic first manifests. It comes in a small spritz of snow from her hand as the three year old tries to reach through the bars of the cot to catch her baby sister’s attention, a small spritz that startles her but delights the baby.---HP AU.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney)
Kudos: 24





	to dwell on dreams

It is when Anna is born that Elsa’s magic first manifests. It comes in a small spritz of snow from her hand as the three year old tries to reach through the bars of the cot to catch her baby sister’s attention, a small spritz that startles her but delights the baby.

Anna’s giggle of a gurgle, the way her eyes open to meet Elsa’s - in that very moment, even as the Norwegian winter beats down upon the eaves of the House of Aren, Elsa knows something has changed with the world. With her world.

The snow melts before her parents next come in to check on the baby, leaving an unassuming wet spot in its place. If anything, Agnarr wonders if he has forgotten how to change nappies.

* * *

Anna is three when their parents find out that Elsa can do magic.

Because Anna asks Elsa to do magic right there and then at the dinner table and six year old Elsa who is too tired and grumpy from chasing after Anna all day finally runs out of patience and dumps a whole bucketful of conjured snow onto Anna’s head.

Stunned silence is broken only by the thump of most of the snow falling off onto the table and into Anna’s soup.

Iduna and Agnarr exchange shocked glances over the tops of their children’s heads.

Elsa watches Anna with bated breath. Or well, the spot where Anna’s head is supposed to be.

Then all the snow comes flying at all of them as Anna shakes herself off like a wet dog, squealing, “Do that again, Elsa! Again!”

Elsa does.

Agnarr doesn’t find the words until after he’s tucked Anna away for the night, and they sound a bit more like, “Elsa dear, what was that?” rather than “Elsa dear, please don’t do that again,” which surprises everyone, most of all him.

Elsa just shrugs, holds out a small hand as a snowflake the size of her face forms in her tiny palm. She presses it into his hand and it is cold and hard and beginning to melt into water and Agnarr feels it almost slip between his fingers.

He sighs because the snowflake is beautiful and his firstborn is still watching him with eyes that sing. 

“This is going to be our little secret, alright?”

“Secret?” Elsa cocks her head to a side, brows knit into a frown, “but what about Anna?”

“It’ll be our family secret,” Iduna murmurs because she’s always been the smarter of the two of them, “and Anna’s known for a while, hasn’t she, my darling?”

Elsa chews on her lower lip. 

“Yeah.”

“It’s alright dear,” Iduna says, “it’ll be alright.”

* * *

Anna is five when it is not alright.

Anna is five when they are playing in the drawing room because it’s storming outside and she cannot climb trees in this weather so Elsa is making big poofs of snow for her to jump from, just like they’ve done for months. And she is catching Anna like she always does but then Anna starts running and for a second, Elsa is afraid.

For a second, Elsa is afraid.

And in that second, she slips, hits the ground, hits her head, but all she can think is Anna, Anna, who is jumping and she looks up and her head is heavy and she sees Anna jumping and she raises her hand and she misses.

Elsa has never missed before but she misses and Anna goes flying instead.

Anna’s crash into the wall might just as well have been Elsa’s own crash because her heart is being squeezed so hard she can barely breathe and she does not remember how she gets to Anna, and how she wishes with all of her heart that Anna is going to be ok and the next thing she knows she is lying in her bed.

Elsa’s eyes swim open.

In the darkness of the night, she can see that Anna’s bed is empty and her heart leaps- Anna! Is Anna alright? Where is Anna?

Light peeks in from under the door and she hears hushed voices down the corridor and so she gets up, gathering her nightdress around her, pauses, then turns back for Sir Jorgen Bjorgen for that little bit of courage that she might need.

“Mr and Mrs Aren,” an unfamiliar voice comes, “I must-”

“That would be Lord and Lady Aren to you,” Papa says coldly and a shiver runs down Elsa’s spine. That sounds like the voice that Papa only uses with mean people and he rarely uses that at home because mean people don’t come to their home. And they’re speaking in English. She has been learning English at school for a bit but it does not flow on her tongue nor in her mind the way Norwegian does but she does her best. Elsa always tries her best.

She pauses at the turn of the corridor, grip tightening on Sir Jorgen Bjorgen.

“You must be Elsa,” the same unfamiliar voice says, “Come on out into the light, child.”

“Elsa? You’re awake?”

“You said she’d-”

“Your daughter, Lord Aren,” says the stranger in the funny hat and the funny cloak, “is quite powerful, it might seem.”

Mama gathers Elsa into her arms in a way she hasn’t done for a while because Elsa is getting bigger and taller nowadays but she cannot find it in herself to mind.

“Mama,” Elsa whispers, “is Anna alright?”

Mama hesitates, but she nods and Elsa can feel the relief flood into her and lets it go onto the ground the way she always does at home in a small wave of snow.

Then she remembers the stranger.

“I-I didn’t mean to,” Elsa says, “I mean I-”

She turns wildly to Papa, “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

Papa sighs, “It’s alright, snowflake, he knows.”

“He knows?” Elsa’s eyebrows shoot into her fringe, “but-”

“Young Miss Elsa,” the stranger says as he sweeps his hat off his head, “forgive my manners, I have yet to introduce myself. My name is Jakob Sorenson and I come from the Danish Ministry of Magic. You, young lady, have given us, well, me, quite a lot of work to do tonight.”

Elsa stares back at him.

“There isn’t a Ministry of Magic,” she says, “and we are in Norway.”

“Ah,” he clears his throat, “well, my Norwegian counterparts have been quite busy lately with the new year’s crop of Ridgebacks - nasty fire breathers, so glad we don’t have Danish dragons, I must say, and I was close by, so they sent me.”

“Dragons are real?”

He chuckles, “oh yes. And magic is real too.”

Elsa rolls her eyes, “Of course magic is real.”

His grin grows even bigger, “Of course it is, my lady.”

Papa clears his throat.

“Oh yes,” Jakob says, “back to our earlier discussion. Elsa, what say you to coming to live amongst the wizarding folk? You’ll be able to start learning how to control your magic earlier than the usual schooling system.”

Elsa looks up at Mama.

Mama looks back down at her.

Elsa thinks about what Jakob has said, then frowns, “But I can control my magic.”

The smile on Jakob’s face grows a little smaller, “Wasn’t this an accident?”

He doesn’t seem to be talking to her, but Mama and Papa don’t seem to be answering either, so Elsa does.

“It was,” she says, “but only because I missed and hit Anna. And I didn’t mean to and I’ve never missed before but I slipped and I fell and I hit my head and I missed.”

“And that,” Jakob gestures to the melting pile of snow, “did you mean for that to happen too?”

Mama’s grip grows tighter around her and something tightens around the corners of Papa’s eyes but Elsa doesn’t dare lie to a wizard so she just nods.

Jakob sighs.

“Then I’m afraid I can no longer offer you a choice, Elsa. You have to come with me.”

“Are Mama and Papa and Anna coming too?”

Jakob shakes his head.

“Then no,” Elsa doesn’t know where she finds the courage from, only that she will not leave, “no, I’m not going with you.”

“Elsa,” he says, “you need to learn to control your magic or it could hurt someone.”

“I can control it,” Elsa says, though her eyes go to the carpet and she wants to cry and it is only Mama’s arms around her shoulders and the feeling of Sir Jorgen Bjorgen in her hands that is holding her together, “I can. I can do it. I will do it.”

Jakob sighs, “Elsa, you don’t know anything about magic. Anytime you use it, it is a miracle that you haven’t hurt yourself or anyone else.”

No, Elsa thinks, I’ve been using magic all my life. For as long as I can remember. For as long as Anna has been around.

But she doesn’t dare say it.

Instead she says, “Then I won’t.”

“You won’t?”

“I won’t use magic,” Elsa says, “If it’s dangerous then I won’t use magic anymore. I won’t. I’ll be a good girl. I promise.”

Jakob shakes his head, “It’s not that-”

“I won’t,” she squeezes her eyes shut so the tears won’t come out, “I promise I won’t. You can take me away if it happens again but I won’t. I won’t. I don’t want to go away. I’ll be a good girl. I will. I promise.”

Mama’s arms tremble around her.

Jakob sighs, “Well, it’s not like I was looking forward to separating you from your family, goodness knows that’d suck. Alright then, kiddo, you have yourself a deal. No magic until you go to school, alright?”

Elsa lets a breath go that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and the tears flow free as she does.

She scrubs at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Wait.

“School? But school starts next week.”

“Ah,” Jakob scratches the back of his neck, “I meant magic school. You’ll see what I mean when you’re eleven.”

He stands, “Well, can’t really say it’s been a pleasure, but it’s definitely been interesting. I’m going to head out to get some sleep. I’ll see you around, Young Miss Elsa. See-”

“Wait,” Elsa says, heart pounding so hard in her chest that she can barely hear anything else, “you can do magic, right?”

Jakob nods as he puts his hat back on.

“Can you make Anna forget that I have magic?”

* * *

“She doesn’t like you!”

“Elsa likes me,” Fourth grader Anna shrieks at Hans, the boy in her grade who seems to have decided since first grade that everyday is make-Anna-miserable day.

“But she’s never come pick you up and you just walk home on your own if your mom’s busy!”

“Elsa’s at boarding school, you dummy!”

“Because she doesn’t like you!”

“No, it’s because Elsa’s real smart, she’s too smart for the schools here and she goes to boarding school in England!”

“I bet that’s a lie and she just doesn’t want to have you as a sister-”

“Hans,” comes the tired voice of their homeroom teacher, “your brother Lars is here to pick you up.”

“See? At least Lars likes me!”

“You said Lars ignored you for two years!”

“Yeah well, Elsa’s ignored you all your life, at least Lars likes me now!”

“Elsa-”

Hans is gone from the room before Anna can finish her sentence, but to be honest, she doesn’t even know what she would say. Elsa cares? She doesn’t know. Even before going to boarding school, Elsa barely came out of her room unless it was for meals no matter how much Anna knocked and would only say a few words at dinner, have a few quick bites before dashing back upstairs.

Anna can still hear the sound of Elsa’s door shutting. There’s a slight creak as it closes and a thump, almost as if Elsa was trying to be quiet then gave up.

She’s tried dashing up the stairs after Elsa before, but she’s never quite been fast enough.

Then Elsa went off to boarding school in England last year, of all places, and Anna just stopped knocking because there’s no one behind that door anymore.

She knows she hates Hans with a passion because she’s afraid that he’s right. That Elsa really doesn’t like her.

“Anna sweetheart, your mom just called saying she’s busy...”

Anna trudges home and it feels like her backpack weighs a ton.

She almost feels like she remembers a time when Elsa would have happily lifted her bag off of her shoulders, would have put Anna on her own shoulders and run around poking sticks at things but that doesn’t seem like it would be quite real at all. No matter how much she wishes it to be.

She twirls the one stubborn blonde curl she’s always had around a finger.

It’s a habit she can’t quite shake.

* * *

Anna has just turned eleven when an owl crashes into the window to their dining room.

Elsa who has only just returned from boarding school for summer turns white, mumbles something and runs up the stairs. Anna hears her door shut and pretends it does not hurt. It still does. It hurts the same way it’s always hurt since she was five.

The owl crashes into the same closed window again. And again. The same window. Anna has her wince timing down to an art now, judging by the size of the approaching white blur.

Mama and Papa exchange a glance.

“Elsa,” Mama’s voice floats up the stairs, “Honey, the owl isn’t here for you. You can come down now.”

Mama chuckles, “You should come down, darling. You’re not going to want to miss this.”

The. Owl. Isn’t. Here. For. Elsa?

Anna thinks she might be going crazy because she definitely did not just hear her mother say that an owl was not here for her sister. What could that possibly even mean?

That one creaky step goes off when Elsa steps onto it, but it is the look on Elsa’s face as she appears that takes Anna off-guard.

Is that- happiness?

Thunk goes the owl again and both sisters jump.

Mama sighs, “Agnarr.”

Papa chuckles as he gets up from his seat and opens the window.

A small but clearly determined snowy owl floats into the kitchen in what can only be described as a three-dimensional zigzag.

It drops a roll of something in front of Anna and then flies off.

A cold wind blows through the window.

"Snowflake," Mama says. 

"Sorry," Elsa mumbles. 

Anna is completely confused at this point and just stares at the roll of what must be parchment. 

"Read it," Elsa says gently, quietly, in a way that Anna hasn't heard directed at her in years, "read it, Anna."

Anna opens it. Somehow. Who uses wax seals nowadays? And what is this thing even made of because it doesn’t feel like paper...

“Uh,” she says, “what kind of name is Hogwarts? Is this a joke?”

Anna hears Elsa giggle. She doesn’t know how she knows it was Elsa’s giggle. But it must have been because it is at once familiar and so, so foreign.

Her head jerks right up to see tears pouring down Elsa’s face.

“Oh snowflake,” Papa rumbles as he puts a hand on Elsa’s shoulder then jerks his head towards Anna, “Tell her. She deserves to know.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't given up on my ongoing nor am I starting another - this is just an idea that popped into my head fully formed, demanding to be written. It's a universe I adore and would love to explore given enough interest/more plot bunnies showing up.
> 
> Little random details: I sent Elsa to Hogwarts because I can't see Elsa deciding to go to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons and well, if one Aren sister is going to Hogwarts, I assume the other would go too. Also they get owls instead of faculty delivery because the parents already know since one child is already at Hogwarts. And they don't get another visit from Jakob because I didn't think it would do much to advance the plot, since the only interesting perspective would be Anna's and they've already made it a point to modify her memories... Yes, Elsa is a powerful witch for manifesting magic and control over those powers so early on in life.
> 
> As a last note, this fic has been a departure in style from some of my previous work where I used to keep mostly to 1 perspective - in this one I felt like the shifts actually shed light in a way that I want it to be shed so I went for it. I hope it's not too confusing.
> 
> Let me know what you thought~


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